


I Don't Care (I Love It)

by goodboots



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff everywhere, Gen, M/M, Not Underage, Not to be taken seriously under any circumstances, Self-indulgent like whoa, Stiles turns eighteen and Derek gets his shit together, That's it, crack everywhere else, that's the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-01
Updated: 2013-08-01
Packaged: 2017-12-22 02:05:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/907602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodboots/pseuds/goodboots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Stiles's 18th birthday, Scott gives him a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, Allison gives him a digital copy of a grimoire her dad unearthed in New Mexico and four dozen Wolfsbane bullets, Isaac gives him a hug, Boyd and Erica give him silent but considering nods of greeting in the hallways at school, and Lydia throws him a party.</p>
<p>It's the last part that's kind of confusing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Don't Care (I Love It)

**Author's Note:**

> There is no excuse for this, really.

For Stiles's 18th birthday, Scott gives him a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, Allison gives him a digital copy of a grimoire her dad unearthed in New Mexico and four dozen wolfsbane bullets, Isaac gives him a hug, Boyd and Erica give him silent but considering nods of greeting in the hallways at school, and Lydia throws him a party.

It's the last part that's kind of confusing.

"Why?" he asks, mouth hanging open.

This is literally jaw-dropping news. He's dimly aware that sixteen-year-old Past Stiles would be weeping with joy at the idea that Lydia would go to all that trouble for him, but present-Stiles is more familiar with the reality of Lydia Martin (as opposed to the flat, sexy-sexy ideal that had lived in his head since puberty) and he’s pretty sure she’s up to something devious. 

“Why would you want to throw me a party? Is this _Carrie_? Are you going to pour lambs’ blood on me? Because I feel like most of our social circle would just see that as the fudge topping on an irresistible Stiles-sundae and I don’t think we should tempt them like that, it’s unkind.”

"It's not a party for _you_ ," she says, minimally withering. He gets the feeling she really is just trying to teach him something here. "The party is for everyone who knows you."

"O...kay?"

Lydia exhales loudly, passes him the stack of chemistry textbooks she’s got under her arm and starts rooting around in her bag. She comes up with a spiral notebook and pink sparkly pen, pulls the cap off with her teeth and proceeds to scrawl something across the first page.

"Think about it,” she says, after he takes the pen cap away, “if you turn eighteen alone, you get to celebrate. But if you make a production out of turning eighteen, then everyone gets to celebrate. It’s a win-win."

“Celebrate what? My successful journey to voting age? The fact that I didn’t get killed before I could legally gamble?”

Lydia rips the sheet of paper out of the book and folds it into a square. “Don’t be melodramatic. The school fatality rate is way down this year, you weren’t going to die.”

He has no idea how to respond to that. Instead Stiles points out that he doesn't know how to make a production out of a birthday. "The last birthday party I had was in grade school. Scott and I did laser tag."

She gives him a vaguely pitying look, tucks the folded paper inside his shirt pocket and rests her hand on his shoulder (even six months ago that would have sent chills through him; now he's just noticing how obscenely pink her fingernails are. He can't believe he ever loved someone with fingernails that fluorescently pink), and says, "That's why you need me."

***

So Stiles caves. What else could he have done? Lydia Martin is an evil genius, and she apparently has plans for his birthday, so now _he_ has plans for his birthday.

This actually creates more problems than it solves.

The paper Lydia wrote out for him includes a date (next Friday after school since the lacrosse championship is on Saturday night and everybody’s going to be out supporting—it’s just as well, since Saturday’s his actual birthday, and he’s going to the game the next day to cheer on Scott), brief instructions about what not to bring (alcohol or his Jeep, apparently whatever he drinks isn’t cool enough for the crowd she’s inviting and there’ll be enough of her parents booze that he shouldn’t even think about driving home), and a list of items he’s forbidden to wear.

It’s most of his closet. 

He spends more time getting ready for this thing than he’s even spent on his appearance in probably his entire life, but then decides that that’s fitting. It’s maybe part of his transition into New Stiles. Adult Stiles.

Because, see, it’s May. In two weeks high school will be over; in September he’ll move to San Francisco and start college at Berkeley. There’s a whole summer in between to make the most of Beacon Hills and his time left living with his dad, the comforts of home, the familiarity of the pack before they all disperse.

Scott's going to UCLA; Allison's going to NYU, which is going to be tough but they swear they know what they're getting into. Erica's got a barista gig, plans to take a year and work her ass off to save for school, like her alpha isn't already preparing a giant novelty tuition check for graduation day. Boyd's going full-time at the auto shop and Isaac's got an elaborate route planned for him and Cora to take through Europe. Derek fully expects them to show up on his doorstep, broke and shivering, by Thanksgiving.

And Stiles is going to move down the coast and learn how to drink and take illicit substances, going to learn and grow and probably get his heart broke (it's okay, he's getting pretty great at handling rejection); he can't wait for it to start, and thanks to the werewolves he's been corralling for years he's gonna be doing it in better shape than he's ever expected. He’s changed a lot this last year especially, and in the course of trying on almost all of his clothes he discovers that half of them don’t fit anymore; running with wolves _has_ changed more than just his sleeping habits and first-aid skills (top notch, lately).

He stands in front of the bathroom mirror trying to look at himself objectively, imagines what kind of first impression he’ll make on the ladies and dudes of San Francisco. He musses up his hair, tries to style it into a faux-hawk using only gravity as a styling aid. It falls flat again but still, it’s way better this way than when he used to buzz it short. Or at least that’s what Erica said at the beginning of the year when she took his razor hostage. He’s not super-tall but he imagines he carries himself well. Still kind of lanky and weird-looking, but, like, solid, not so spastic as he was before the wolves. Verdict: decent.

Eventually he settles for the most inoffensive thing he can think of to wear, the khaki-colored cords Cora told him to buy the last time they went shopping, a navy t-shirt under a button-down and his black Chucks. He looks in the mirror and decides it’s maybe not party enough; he cuffs the sleeves of the shirt to the elbows, adds a belt, takes it away and puts it back on.

He cracks open one of the cans of Pabst, drinks half of it, and looks sternly in the mirror.

“Dude,” he tells his reflection, “what is your problem? You didn’t even want a party. Get it together.”

***

The party is at Lydia's house, because sure, why not? Stiles gets there just after eight, just like the note instructed him, which seems kind of early for a party until he steps through the front door and sees the spread on the dining room table. Apparently they're doing dinner, too.

"You're early," Lydia says, passing through the hallway in front of him, waving for him to follow. She's wearing stiletto heels in her own house, which seems weird to him. "Excellent. No one else is coming for another hour, but I need help setting up.”

She picks up a platter of kebabs off the kitchen counters and puts them in his hands, heads for the dining room. He follows.

“Can you give Isaac a hand with the barbecue? Scott was supposed to do it but he’s not back yet. And take off that shirt; it was on the forbidden list.”

Allison trails her out the French doors to the patio, carrying a bowl of chips in each hand, hair done in an elaborate twirly updo thing that is so not Allison, catches his eyes. Her eyebrows are saying something like _'can you believe this bitch?_ '

Stiles imagines his are saying something similar, but his mouth says nothing. He steps outside and heads for the grill, stripping off the button-down as he goes.

***

Scott shows up ten minutes later, carrying a keg.

“How did you,” Stiles starts to ask, but then he sees Cora marching through the front door, carrying a matching one. “Ah.”

“Happy B-Day, bro,” Scott says, setting the keg down on the carpet and pulling him into a one-arm hug.

“Hey Stiles,” Cora says over his shoulder. “Happy birthday. Nice outfit. Lyds let you pick it out yourself?”

“No, there were instructions,” he says, deadpan so they'll laugh. He feels weirdly off-kilter. He feels like Adult Stiles is kind of a let-down. “Thanks for the keg. I guess you don’t get the opportunity to buy booze very often.”

Her smile always seems to have too many teeth in it. Derek’s is the same, like he’s halfway between laughing and biting. Stiles wonders if it’s more a wolf thing or a Hale thing.

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” she says.

Boyd and Erica appear next, with cupcakes and high-fives to distribute, respectively. Isaac gets the barbecue going, Danny sprawls out on the chaise and keeps up a running commentary on the selection of snack Lydia's provided and how completely nuts she is not to care that her house is, ultimately, going to get completely trashed. Danny gives Stiles a bullhorn for his birthday, for no reason that any of them can figure out. He’s still ridiculously happy about it.

It’s only the pack invited for the pre-party dinner, apparently, and Stiles is weirdly touched by the gesture. He’d honestly been sold on this party as a way for his friends and their friends to unwind; he didn't realise they were taking it so seriously, birthday-wise. They sit down to eat on a picnic blanket spread out beside the pool—it’s a beautiful night, the sun just starting to set, sky pleasantly orange and a gentle breeze in the air—and Stiles looks around at his friends , feeling thankful and mature, thinking _this is so nice_ and _I love all these jerks_ and _where the fuck is Derek?_

He doesn’t _say_ it, though, because he’s not a complete idiot. Because Future Stiles is coming along nicely but Past Stiles and his Uncomfortable Crush isn’t far enough away, yet. Because if the pack didn’t invite their alpha, then there’s got to be a reason. Maybe he’s got important werewolf business or something. Maybe he’s got a date. Maybe he’s lying in a ditch somewhere and they have to go save him…

“Dude, what’s up?” Scott asks, giving him a funny look.

Future Stiles shakes the feeling off, refocuses on his plate. Boyd’s cupcakes look fucking amazing. “Nothing, just thinking. This is just really nice,” and he means it, he does mean it, “I’m really glad everyone’s here.”

Erica steals his cupcake and plants a candle in it, and Lydia makes them sing until he blows it out. He doesn’t have anything to wish for, though.

***

It’s only ten-thirty but the house is packed, okay, the whole high school must be here, and people Stiles has never spoken to before slap him on the back and wish him a good one. He’s feeling good, actually. He’s had two more beers and the fruity cocktail Allison made him, and he’s stopped looking over his shoulder, expecting something weird to go down, until—

“Derek knows all the words to this song,” Cora informs them when Icona Pop comes up on her iPod. They're in the living room with fifty or sixty other people, furniture carefully pushed against the walls, carpets rolled back for a makeshift dance floor. She's hooked up a mini DJ station, hers and the packs' collective iPods and two massive speakers she dragged in from her car, and is dutifully throwing down most-requested tunes, though she tells Greenberg to go do something anatomically impossible when he asks for Taylor Swift.

“Man, I wish he were here just so I could verify that,” Danny says, twirling Erica.

"He's not invited," Stiles informs them, a little belligerent and a little drunk, and over this Lydia announces, "He's coming later."

That takes Stiles a minute to comprehend. Then:

"What? Wait, what? Derek’s coming here?”

She nods, grinning, swaying to the beat. "Later, he told Isaac he’d bring the car."

Oh, okay, that makes sense. Derek is picking Isaac up; Isaac, who lives with him in the loft downtown, and who has been drinking. How responsible.

"I'm going to get some air," he shouts over the music. Cora blows him a kiss goodbye, presses next and a song he doesn't recognize starts playing.

***

Outside he talks to some of the guys from his math class about the final next week, how the SAT was a breeze and none of them know why they were so panicked over it. They leave after a few minutes, wishing him a haps b-day, and he ends up making a slow circuit of the backyard; he talks to probably every senior from Beacon Hills high who isn’t inside dancing, gets a feel for where everyone is heading in the fall. It feels good, actually, being the life of the party, playing host a bit, but it doesn’t accomplish much—he can’t find anyone he wants to see, and after an hour he’s getting tired of sipping at his drink and nodding along to stories about college applications. He’s drunker and getting increasingly more paranoid.

He says goodnight to Greenberg and stumbles straight into Lydia, who's standing side-by-side with Allison looking very serious. Stiles’ brain-to-mouth filter has been corroded by alcohol, so the first thing he thinks is also the first thing he says:

"Hey, have you seen Isaac? I need to talk to Isaac."

Lydia says, “Why,” suspiciously.

He doesn’t have a good response.

“I need to talk to him about Derek.”

Allison says “Oh Jesus not again,” and wanders around to the other side of the pool to where Scott and the lacrosse team are chilling.

“Is this going to be embarrassing for everyone?” Lydia asks in her wake. “Because Halloween was bad enough.”

They’d all promised never to bring that up. Fucking Druids and their truth-potion-smoke-bomb things. Fucking Miss Morell and her ideas about helping her students talk about their feelings.

“We don’t talk about Halloween,” Stiles admonishes.

Scott catches his eye over Lydia's shoulder, starts mouthing something at him from the other side of the pool that he can’t hear over the sound of the music. It looks like _gringos._

"Fine. So why do you need to talk about him now? Can't you just enjoy the fabulous gathering I've thrown you?"

"You would have put this together with or without my birthday, Lyds," which is unkind and, from the way her face kind of collapses, apparently not true. "Wait, hey, I'm sorry," he says, reaching for her shoulder.

"It's fine, question my motives. I get it. You're a naturally suspicious character. But," she says, her eyes suddenly sharp, focused, "I want you to promise me you're not going to let this thing with Derek upset you. You're the guest of honor here, everybody knows it's your birthday, and you cannot leave just because you're having some kind of werewolf-related emotional trauma. Deal?"

That kind of throws a wrench in his plans, because yeah, he was maybe thinking about ducking out early, heading out to Derek's loft, see if he's around—

"But—"

"Cannot. Leave," she repeats. "Do you understand how that would reflect on my hosting skills, if you just take off—"

Stiles stops listening, distracted by his vibrating pocket.

Scott: GREENHOUSE! ISAAC!

Ah-ha!

"Okay, okay," he holds up both his hands, defeated, "I'll be the last one out the doors, I promise," and that seems to satisfy her.

"Two-fifteen!" she shouts after him. "You can leave at 2:15AM and not a moment before!"

He loses her in the crowd on the patio, is off to the greenhouse when—

***

"—Stiles," someone stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

His heart stops, just a bit, just for a second, but the voice is all wrong.

"Yeah," he says, turning back.

It's Boyd.

"What's going on, man? Did you get any of the burgers? Oh, and those cupcakes were freaking amazing. I washed mine down with some of Allison's cake-flavored vodka, and it's like a sugary party in my mouth right now."

Boyd's holding a red solo cup that matches Stiles' own, which is funny because none of his supernaturally-inclined friends are able to get drunk.

_(Be safe_ , his dad had instructed him on his way out the door tonight, and Stiles had laughed. His closest friends are all permanent designated drivers, and the condom in his wallet from last summer has still never been used. Safest.)

Body's probably the safest of them all, though, because apparently his cup only has water in it.

“Erica helped with the cupcakes,” Boyd says. “She told me not to tell you. You know how she gets. Anyway, I meant to tell you earlier, congrats on Berkeley. That's impressive shit."

Stiles likes to think of himself as a decently humble person, but it _is_ impressive shit, he's pretty fucking proud.

"You're still gonna be around, though? Not leaving us to fend for ourselves?"

The question's so out of the blue, it takes Stiles a second to understand what he's talking about. Then he gets it: the pack.

"Why, did someone say—" Oh, shit. "Did _Derek_ say I won't be? Is that what's going on? He thinks I'm going to drop this like it's hot?"

His eyes widen. "Since when do you care what Derek thinks? Last year it was all _I'm in this pack whether you like it or not_."

True. After the initial Deucalion incident, after Derek and Scott had conspired to keep him out of their dangerous creature-of-the-night shit, he'd straight-up told them he wasn't leaving without a fight.

"I don't care," Stiles insists, maybe too strongly. Boyd's eyebrows jump halfway up his forehead. "I just--oh, jeez, never mind. Yes, I'll still be around. I'm your guys' resident magical boy one way or the other, somebody's gotta lay the mountain ash lines."

"Lydia can do that too."

"Yeah. Okay, well, good talk," he says weakly, slapping Boyd on the shoulder. "I gotta go. Thanks for the b-day wishes or whatever."

Boyd says, "Just--make that your last drink, okay? You’re gonna want to sober up in a bit.”

He says it like he says almost everything, dead-serious but with a smile, and Stiles takes it to heart without even consciously considering it. He drains the rest of the red solo cup on his way around the house, drops it in a potted plant behind the garage.

***

The Martin's greenhouse is around the back of the property, set aside from the pool and the main house. It’s probably the least-stylish part of the whole set-up, and Stiles has only been inside it that one time he needed fresh Aloe for one of Deaton’s poultices. That was last November, during the kelpie situation, and he’d been in a hurry, annoyed at being sent on errand-duty when Derek and Cora were trapped in some nightmare coma and he needed that poultice made like yesterday. Now he gets to fully appreciate the size of the place. There are rows and rows of tables, most covered by burlap against the night chill but some exposed; he sees herbs and cacti, tomato cuttings and mysterious vines creeping over table-edges.

He finds Isaac on the hard dirt ground between the third and fourth rows. Erica is stretched out beside him, staring up at the mottled green glass roof. They’re talking in low voices, almost whispers, and they both look up at him when he pads over. 

“Hey there, birthday boy,” Isaac says. “How’s the party?”

“Surreal,” he says truthfully.

Erika only smiles, wiggles her fingers at him. It’s not like her to be so quiet, no snappy remark about his outfit or the fact he showed up alone to his own party. He’s about to comment on it when he notices the glassy look in her eyes.

"What'd she take?" He’d been under the impression drugs didn’t do anything for werewolves, but he’d trust Erica to come up with a work-around.

"She and Cora blended in some absinthe with wolfsbane and wine. It hit her a little harder than they were expecting.”

Erica reaches up with one warm, closes her fist around something neither of them can see and giggles. Isaac strokes her hair, makes a shushing sound.

"She'll be fine, but I didn't want to leave her alone."

"You guys need a ride home?"

He shakes his head. "Boyd's going to drive us once Derek gets here with the car."

Opening! Take it! Go!

"Right, so, about Derek," Stiles starts, completely fucking unsubtle, "why didn’t you guys bring him? I don't know if Lydia thought to invite him but you know--" Oh, how to phrase it? "It should have been the whole pack here. It's weird without him."

Issac _laughs_ ; even Erica snickers, eyes closed and nose scrunched up.

“You think we could have made him show up before he wanted to?” Isaac asks. “That guy runs on his own time.”

 ***

It’s two in the morning, and now it's Stiles’ actual birthday. He looks up into the mirror in the Martin's bathroom and thinks something wild and half-formed like _Hello, Future Me, I really thought things would be different for us._

Because he doesn't feel any different. Turning eighteen isn't like being under a full moon, and becoming an adult isn't like turning into a werewolf. But he thought, he really did think a little, that this was going to be the start of something.

He walked into this party feeling like he was stepping onto a precipice, and that was his mistake. Maybe every exciting thing that's happened in his life so far is all that's going to happen. (No, don't be an idiot, of course that's not true--not with his connection to Beacon Hills, the town that logic forgot. He'll always have some kind of supernatural fuckery going on, he’s not going to get bored).

Maybe the next exciting things that happen next will be more mundane, though. Maybe he'll have to take all the risks himself, like Berkeley. No more waiting around for things to happen _to_ him.

Stupid, the things people pin on birthdays. 

***

He steps out of the washroom into the hallway, follows the music back to the living room. Some people have dispersed but the party's still going, the French doors thrown wide open, couples kissing on the couches and a rousing game of beer pong taking place out on the patio, plenty still dancing to Cora's playlists. Some have jumped into the pool fully clothed. Stiles is impressed, he thought that only happened in movies.

He's so done. What he wouldn't give to be home in his bed with his laptop right now?

He doesn't see any of the pack around except Cora, who catches his eye as he slumps down on the only empty armchair and reaches for a bag of Doritos on the coffee table.

She waves at him from across the room, grinning suddenly splitting her face, and then she does a weird thing:

She picks Danny's bullhorn up off the dining room table and announces the time. It doesn't seem like an incredibly weird thing to do until she does it.

"It's two oh two," she announces, voice nasally and distorted. "I repeat, the time is now two oh two in the morning."

The music cuts out mid-song and the place goes dead silent. Not just no-music silent; like, can-hear-a-pin-drop silent.

Stiles looks over his shoulder at the music setup and sees Danny holding the iPod in one hand, Lydia’s hand in the other, supporting her as she clambers up onto one of the giant speakers in her stupid high heels.

She stands up in front of the crowd, opens her mouth and says, “Everybody get out,” and people _do_.

They actually do it. Everybody leaves like this is a perfectly normal end to the night, scrambling over the backs of the couches, streaming through the doors, like this is how all these parties end. Like maybe they’d all agreed to vacate the premises at a forewarned time, fuck, he doesn’t even fucking _know_.

Stiles stands up and watches while the four-hundred odd classmates from Beacon Hills high and surrounding schools flee the Martin living room. Out the French doors they take the twisty side-yard path back to the main street, or run out the back gate and down the alleyway.

They leave by the front door, heading for cars. Some are hopping the fence into neighbor's yards, climbing trees. Someone falls into the pool, pulls someone else in with him, but nobody stops or slows down.

Out on the front street, there are there are no squad cars, no police. They’re entitled to a warning about noise complaints before they can be shut down, anyway, and he wouldn’t put it past Lydia to create some kind of supernatural sound-barrier around the place. The Martins won’t be back from New York for another six days. there's no reason for everyone to run away. Stiles has no fucking idea what’s going on.

He checks the bathroom, the kitchen, tries to stop people. No one pays him any attention, just slap him on the back and wish him a good birthday. The front door slams shut, the last guests leaving. Lydia's voice reaches his ears, saying, “Stiles, remember, two fifteen."

Two fifteen? 2:15? Oh, shit.

"You want me to stay here alone?" he asks, ducking out of the kitchen and following her voice. “But—“

She’s leaving—she _lives here_ , what the hell is happening—she's out the French doors at a run, across the yard, shouting back, "And you now owe me one massive, unspecific favor,” pulling a laughing Cora along behind her.

Stiles makes it to the patio in time to see them jump the fence.

***

He makes a slow circuit of the house and waits. He has five minutes and then he figures he'll head home, leave the Martin's nice house trashed and all the doors and windows wide open in Beacon Hills, the town that attracts nefarious bullshit like nobody’ business. He's so pissed he doesn't care. He hopes fairies take the place. He hopes a poltergeist settles in.

He sits down on the couch again, thinking that this is honestly worse than the _Carrie_ lambs’ blood dousing scenario. He decides this has quickly become a contender for the weirdest night of his life.

And then the front door opens.

***

"Hey," Derek says.

Stiles immediately says, "Everybody just fucking bailed, what the fuck is going on?"

Derek looks like shit. He’s wearing the same old same old, leather jacket James Dean kind of look, but his shirt doesn’t have any blood on it and there aren’t any holes in these jeans, so he might be dressed up.

Stiles’ stomach does a familiar little flip when their eyes meet; fuck, he’s supposed to be past that by now.

“I need to talk to you,” Derek says.

Stiles feels a frown settle over his face; he doesn’t mean for it to be there, but he’s kind of worried he’s about to get the sterner, more hurt version of the talk Boyd gave him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, I thought I should—happy birthday, I mean—“

There’s a distant roll of thunder, and Stiles’ attention swivels to the open doors. It’s starting to rain, fucking perfect. Derek’s saying something about timing, waiting for the right moment. Man, he sure missed that if he was trying to make an entrance, he should have done it before everyone took off.

Stiles interrupts him, says, “Hey, look, sorry to ask but could you maybe give me a lift home? I walked over and don’t really want to spend my birthday getting soaked in the rain.”

Derek’s eyebrows are inching higher than he’d thought possible. “Stiles,” he says, slowly, like Stiles is a complete idiot for suggesting that, “I don’t have the car.”

“But you’re driving Isaac home.”

Derek shakes his head slowly, bewildered.

A horn honks on the street, and they both start for the windows. Stiles, for once, is faster, but that might only be because Derek is experiencing some kind of possession that makes him awkward and confused-looking instead of self-assured as hell.

He gets to the Martin’s bay window in time to see the Camaro pull away from the drive. Boyd’s at the wheel, Erica lolling in the passenger seat, grinning wide enough to split her face, and Isaac up at them waving out the open window.

“Son of a bitch,” Stiles breathes out.

Because oh. Oh, no, he's had it all completely fucking backwards.

He turns around, sees with distant relief that Derek’s still standing behind the couch, in the space between the living and dining rooms. The lights are all on, harsh bright on his skin; he’s pale and shiny, and there’s something familiar in his expression.

Stiles didn’t place it earlier, maybe because of the drinking and dancing, too busy caught up in the atmosphere, but it reminds him of Cora’s smile from earlier, of Scott and Danny’s smile, Lydia’s calculating looks and Erica’s hazy giggles. It reminds him of the fact that all his friends were grinning today, but not like they were happy for him; smiling like they _knew_ something.

It’s different on Derek, though, because he doesn’t only look happy—he doesn’t even look happy, he looks manic, flushed and wide-eyed—Stiles doesn’t have the words to describe it. He looks terrified and greedy.

Stiles feels a blush creeping up his neck.

“I thought—” Stiles starts, forces himself to finish the sentence, “I thought you were pissed at me. About Berkeley.”

“Berkeley,” Derek repeats, blankly.

“You know, that I was leaving the town behind or whatever. I thought you were going to kick me out of the pack—that that was why you didn’t come to the party.”

Wow, mildly confused to total bitchface in zero seconds. Stiles has actually seen that happen to Derek’s expression before, but it’s terrifying and also kind of hot to be on the receiving side of it.

“Do you not even—you think I would do that?”

“You weren’t doing anything else,” Stiles says. It comes out meaner than he meant it too. “I mean… you never said anything, even when I—"

“You were seventeen,” Derek counters quickly. “And then there was the Alpha pack, and Peter, and Gerard again—we had so much to deal with last year, I didn’t want to put anything else on you, and then—“

He breaks off, swallows thickly. Stiles has never heard Derek talk this much about feelings in one sitting, and it seems greedy to ask for more, but he’s got to know what’s hanging off the end of that ‘and.’

“What?” he prompts, after a few seconds. He shuffles closer, step by step, eyes locked on Derek. His knees hit the couch cushions and he doesn’t care how stupid he must look, gazing up and waiting.

“And I didn’t think it needed saying,” Derek says.

“I said it,” Stiles reminds him, although that kind of goes against the rules of Don’t Talk About Halloween. “You—“

“Are a werewolf,” Derek continues, ticking off on his fingers, leaning close, “and I'm older than you, you're going to Berkeley, you’ve got this huge future ahead of you, I mean, what could you possibly want with—"

"Shut up, shut up," Stiles says, tugging him close.

He basically attacks him with his lips, surging forward of the back of the couch. He has ten seconds to feel embarrassed about it, to fear that this is going to go the same as their last kiss (“I can’t,” he’d said, pushing him back, and Stiles had been so sure that was pity in his eyes; now he’s not so sure) before Derek makes a low groaning sound into his mouth and deepens it.

His fingers curl into Derek’s shirt; his hands settle on his waist, oh Jesus Christ. He’s touched Derek before, battle wounds and incidental brushes of proximity, but he’s never felt him, not like this, shaky and wondering, so close.

For once, the little voice at the back of his head that insists he’s imagining things is silent; he’s not, this isn’t a hallucination or wish-fulfillment. He promised himself half a year ago that he’d try to get over this infatuation, stop thinking of Derek when he jerks off, and it had worked, sort of: he started thinking of Derek the rest of the time too.

Stiles figured it was his due. He fixated on Lydia for years, and when he stopped thinking of her that way he realized how wrong for him she would have been, how much they didn’t match up. He tried to do the same thing with Derek, just to put the whole embarrassing crush behind him, and instead discovered just how deep his feelings ran.

Derek loves _Star Wars_ and vanilla milkshakes and the Yankees (ugh). He wakes up early whenever he can, goes for a run in the preserve because he likes being near the land he grew up on, doesn’t hold anything against it for what happened. He’d like to fix up the burnt-out shell of the house one day, isn’t ready to look at it yet. He plays old Laura’s old mix CDs in the Camaro, the only things of hers he had on him when he drove out to Beacon Hills to find her.

“I don’t regret coming back,” he’d said last New Years’ Eve, when Stiles had asked. The two of them were alone, out on the McCall roof, watching for the fireworks from downtown. It was cold, chances of snow, and everyone else was inside watching the ball drop in Times Square. “I think Laura would have wanted me to build the pack back up. She said I needed more than just the two of us; maybe she was right.”

It was the first time they’d really talked alone, since Stiles’ super-awkward confession, and he’d prided himself on how calm he was, that he could sat there with the object of his infatuation and have a meaningful conversation.

“I wish I could’ve met her,” Stiles had said, kind of a weak but honest contribution.

“Me too,” Derek replied, “she would have loved you.”

Stiles had thought at the time that he’d meant the pack, all of them at the time, but now he’s re-evaluating.

***

He breaks away from the kiss and says, breathless still a little skeptical, “So, what’s the deal?

Derek’s lip are swollen, eyes wide. He leans back in to Stiles’ space, catches his lips again. They’re still on opposite sides of the couch; this is ridiculous.

“It’s your birthday,” Derek says, settling one hand on Stiles forearm, sliding hand across the back skin of his waist under his shirt.

His heart’s hammering in his chest. Derek smirks like he can hear it.

Just to be a jerk, Stiles says, "And? What took you so long? Like, you were seriously waiting for legal adulthood?"

Even as he says it, everything clicks into place.

Stiles made a move in October—admittedly, an uncomfortable, truth-potion inspired move that left months of awkwardness in its wake, but still, a move, there was kissing and confessions, it still counts—but Derek couldn't do anything then. He didn’t do anything through December, under the mistletoe, or on New Years’, or Valentines. He didn’t do anything through lacrosse season or the SATs. He was just—there, around, with advice and support, weirdly funny anecdotes once you got used to his sense of humor, the deadpan way his insults turned into compliments.

Derek was around, and Stiles only fell more in love with him by the day, and Derek couldn’t do anything.

Because, and he didn't grasp the significance of this until now, because Stiles' confession was about Derek but Derek's was about Kate Argent, and how she got the information to destroy his life.

"You were waiting for legal adulthood," Stiles repeats, wonderingly, and proceeds to climb Derek like a tree.

He's apparently fine with that, judging from the sounds he makes against Stiles' mouth.

***

Later, they lie on the floor under a blanket pulled from the couch that they’ll have to take with them when they leave, probably, because the Martins aren’t going to want it back, and Derek admits that he was kind of nervous after all.

“It occurred to me at about midnight that you might not still feel that way about me,” he says against the curve of Stiles’ shoulder.

“You only thought of that tonight? I’ve been trying to convince you I don’t care about you all year!”

Stiles stretches against him, encouraging, in spite of his words.

"God, do you know how difficult it was to stay away from you after—and you sulked, you were so angry at me.”

"At myself," he corrects, "I was super embarrassing and clingy about you, I didn’t want you to think I was, like, _pining_.”

"I didn’t think that," Derek says, drawing him back down. “But I was.”

***

In the morning, when the sun starts to rise through the open windows and startles them into wakefulness, they disentangle from the couch, gather discarded clothes from different corners of the room. Derek makes coffee in the Martin's ridiculously complicated multipurpose blender/steamer/grinder thing, and Stiles makes toast and digs a jar of jam out of the fridge, and then they survey the damage.

"When did you say Lydia's parents are coming back?" he asks. They’ve settled on the chaise out by the pool. The water’s the same bright blue as the sky except for being full of floating leaves. It’s the most beautiful morning he’s ever witnessed.

"Thursday," Stiles says, unconcerned. He stretches an arm across Derek's shoulders, settles into the curve of his side. It's nice there, he fits very well. "I think they'll have plenty of time to clean up."

"We're not helping?" Derek asks. "Just to be clear, that's not a complaint. I'm fine with not helping clean up a party I was forbidden to attend."

"Yeah, what's the deal with that?" he asks. "I figured maybe the temptation of my jailbait body might be too much for you, but you only had to wait until after midnight. Why 2 AM?"

Derek doesn't answer, because Allison cuts him off, clears her throat and says, "The original plan specified 2 AM because Lydia didn't want to end the party at midnight, and she said it would be over the second you two got your hands on each other."

She's standing behind the rhododendron bushes, in holding an industrial-sized box of trash bags and what appears to be a rake. Scott's standing behind her, clutching rubber gloves and a huge bottle of Lysol in one hand; his other hand is over his eyes.

"Dude, it's fine to look, we're decent." Well, they're clothed anyway.

"Good," he says, lowering the hand. "Because we've got a lot of cleaning up to do.”

“Yes,” Lydia’s voice echoes from inside the house, business-like—ooh, spooky, he hadn’t even heard her open the door. “Everybody come see me before we start cleaning, we all have assigned areas. I have a chart.”

Stiles rises slowly, yawns stretches, and casts a quick glance over his shoulder at Derek. He’s doing basically the same thing, stalling for time. Stiles holds out a hand like he’s going to lead him over into the kitchen for their after-party cleanup assignment—then turns abruptly, and sprints away, Derek close behind him.

They run for the fence.

**Author's Note:**

> I am now on [tumblr](http://missgoodboots.tumblr.com/), because that's where fandom lives, apparently. Come say hello?


End file.
